Have you ever seen a Vonage commercial? They all have a person in the foreground talking about Vonage and something silly in the background that your actually watching. The ads illustrate just how boring and pointless Vonage is.

You mean I talk use my internet connection to talk to people on the phone? But I already have a medium in my house dedicated to that, why put the extra strain on my internet connection? Maybe it sounds better, but I’ve never had a problem understanding people when talking on a land line.

This weekend was Battlecry @ WPI 7. I’ve attended this competition every year since its inception. How did it go this year you ask? Well, I’ll tell you.

Friday night we got the robot running. After testing some different things and getting the controls set, we made a decision. We gave up on shooting. It just wasn’t working at all and wasn’t worth the hassle to figure it out and fix it.

During qualifications, we didn’t do well at all. We ended up seeding 47out of 48. Since we couldn’t shoot, our defensive strategy didn’t work to well in the qualifications. Generally I’d say the qualification rounds were messed up. Teams seeded high that didn’t deserve to be that high. For instance, our alliance captain had the most unreliable robot in the alliance.

Anyway, eliminations came and we didn’t get selected in the first round. We were drawn out of a hat and allied with 1685 and 1733. I thought we had a shot getting past the first round, but I counted us out in the second. After an extremely tough second round, we won.

In case anyone from 121 and/or 126 is reading, we absolutely did not mean any harm. We never tipped anyone over intentionally. I can’t count how many times I told my driver “don’t tip them”. Also, we didn’t mean to damage anyone. Often times competition can be very tough and this was the case. I am very sorry if any damaged was caused. If anyone needs any help please let me know and I’ll do my best.

Eventually we made it to the finals and were beaten by a strong 177 alliance. I had a great weekend and I hope everyone else there did too.

I’ve determined that blogs about you job are boring, unless your an astronaut or something like that. For the most part, people have boring jobs and I don’t care that Joe sucks as a coworker.

I’ve been watching a decent amount of World Cup action. I’m going to say that either Spain or Portugal is going to win. Brazil and Germany are probably the favourites but I think that Portugal can take them.

I also watched the USA game today. For getting so much hype Landon Donovan sucks. Every time he touched the ball he gave it up. He didn’t take a wide open shot he had. He just sucks. Maybe that’s why he’s in the MLS instead of the EPL or something.

I attacked the DVR again. I was having trouble installing windows on it so I ended up doing a low level format. After that I figured out that the static was not a card problem or cable problem. Then I reinstalled Knoppmyth and tried to iron out the problems I was having.

Upon further research, I found that I’m not the only one with these problems. If you read further down in the thread, it turns out there’s some compatibility issue with the new pvr500 cards and the Samsung tuner they use. You can read the original problem stuff here. Hopefully in the near future there will be an official release to fix this.

If anyone else knows anything about it, or how to fix it, please let me know.

The other day I got five credit card offers. Three of them came from the same company. So, in True Maddox style, I’m going to send them something back.

In package number one will be a 4.5 lb steel plate. I got it from a dummy projector at work. And since it’s heavy, shipping will cost a decent amount.

In package number two, sand. Usually used for flood dikes, portable basketball hoops, and other things that require anchoring, I’m sure the person on the other end PO Box 15218 in Wilmington DE can find a use for it. Maybe it will be their start to building a sandbox.

And in package number three will be some coupons and the like. Maybe, this one should be number one since number three always hides the crazy surprise.